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16 April 2011

Seductive Alts

Before I get into what I actually want to talk about today I need to complain bitterly about the fact that I lost my DS on the train. FFFFF!! I was wearing a stupid fashionable coat that I knew had slippery, poorly closed pockets, one that I had even lost a gym card from before and I went and put my stupid DS in the stupid pocket anyway. And then I got off the train and walked about 10 steps, realized that my pocket was too light, and turned back, only to have the doors close in my face and the passengers stare uneasily at the foreigner goggling at them. Then I went to the dirty lost objects office and had to wait for like an hour for them to call every freaking station that my train went to as it arrived, in the hopes that someone would have turned it in. They had not. I've been to my own station since and it still hasn't turned up in the database.

It's not the hardware itself that I miss; it's an ancient DS lite bought back when they only sold them in white [in the US]. It was due for an update anyway, provided I had a reason to. I guess now I do. The problem is that the game contained Pokemon SoulSilver, the DS remake of my most beloved Pokemon generation, and what's worse, it was a gift from my best friend; the English version that I waited a whole year to be translated rather than just buying it at the store when it came out in Japan. And now I have to tell her that even though I had hatched a small Eevee army and named my Togepi Poopie?! just like old times, I lost the game and now I have to buy another copy and start from scratch. UGH MY NERD RAGE KNOWS NO BOUNDS.

So, that out of the way. Despite being very, very close, like 550 lockboxes close, from reaching my extremely long-term goal of The Insane title, I have been completely enthralled by my lowbie toons this week. I got the hardy dwarf shaman to level 20 in no time at all and I have killed every single freaking rare that has come across my path. There are a TON in the old world. Unlike other lowbie experiences, I have found that Loch Modan quests level easily with the toon. Sure, I have gotten a few green quests, or left them too long and they became green, but I'm still getting yellow quests and yellow mobs to kill, so it doesn't feel completely pointless to level there. Compare that to my goblin in Azshara or my worgen just hitting Darkshore, where my goblin isn't even finished with the mage apprentice questline and is juggling green and gray quests. The worgen was sent to Darkshore as a natural progression of questing, and every damn quest is green already! And it's not like I did anything special in Gilneas; you have to do every stinking quest just to get out of the zone!

I wandered around Darnassafrass on my worgen once I got there. I always get the urge to check out lowbie zones and infrequently visited capital cities once in a while. Did you guys know that Malfurion is hanging out with Tyrande?? Spoiler alert: he is!! Her eyes look unusually pinched and tired compared to the flawless skin of her other nelf sisters, so seeing her boyf back in action made me happy. Homegirl deserves a break, and probably a good romp in the sack. She's earned it!

Being in Darkshore was a little weird, because I had first gone through there on my only character, a night elf. Doing some of the quests, I immediately thought of how she would react, mostly with a lot of upset and murdering, because all of the sweet NPCs from Auberdine are dead! /cry But then I realized, as a cursed human-turned-monster worgen, just getting back into the fold with a potentially unreliable Alliance, having lived through the Cataclysm and worgen-related drama with your own people, what would she think about the state of Darkshore? All I could come up with was that it would be upsetting in the way that Things Have Gone Wrong With the World generally are, but not nearly as personal or depressing as it would be for my night elf. So then I hopped on my night elf and wandered around Stormwind in a lovely level 10 dress, sandals, and lantern. I thought about going to Northshire Abbey to do the new human starting zone, but decided to actually roll a new alt somewhere and do it another time. /flop

One thing that I do want to mention about hanging out in lowbie zones is how often I am surprised to encounter NPCs. They are much more active in the zones, patrolling around, killing mobs left and right. I kept seeing them and starting - what are the odds that another lowbie is questing at this time of night, especially with so few lowbies around anyway? And then I would mouseover the character and see that it was an NPC fighting a mob or saving a comrade, and be even more surprised. I'd love to see more NPCs out and about, not only in quest areas but out in the wilds of zones or wandering around major cities.

Part of playing my alts so frequently is that it's easier for me to go and do the things I need to do in the evenings (gym, J class, food shopping) if I don't get on a character in my guild. That way no one will ask me to just heal this one heroic, super quick run, promise! It's much easier to pick up and go if you have been killing bobcats or collecting rock turds without having to explain to guildies where you are going. Unfortunately, because I have been so entranced by playing alts, this means I haven't run a random in about a week. Not that I was running them any more regularly before I worked out this self-control method. Now that we are close to level 25 in the guild, I'm wondering if I'm ready to brave solo PUGs again. Especially since I'm so close to finishing The Insane. Agghhh I need to do that.

Chelley's Bane of Covetous Beko dropped last week, and I've been casting about for some extra cash to buy it from the gbank. I guess I still haven't learned my lesson from before, which is that even if I do blow all of my gold on it, it will likely be replaced before I can even make the money back. I guess it's good that my guild leader hasn't replied to my mail, because I'm only about 3/4 of the way prepared to buy it. Unless he is willing to accept herbs as partial payment...

I finally unlocked the last rare archaeology piece I need from Northrend, so assuming I ever get any Nerubian digsites, I can hopefully return to the old world and get toasted by Deathwing at some point. Maybe one of my gaudy tier sets will bring him down from the skies to roast me.

Strangely enough, I find that when I listen to a podcast while questing or grinding, I can remember what was being discussed if I visit that location again. When I watch TV, however, I don't associate it with wherever I am in WoW. I wonder if that's because it already has a visual component...?